BA (Hons) Game Art

Develop character, concept and environment art, 3d modelling and sculpting in this career-focused game art degree. You’ll develop your own games in collaboration with other students in a structure that replicates the professional environment.

As a game artist, you’ll be joining one of the fastest growing sectors of the games industry where skills are in higher demand than ever before. 

• Our BA (Hons) Game Art degree is designed to turn your passion for games and artistic talent into a professional career, teaching you how to create the stunning visuals that bring games to life. 
• Over three years, you’ll delve into every aspect of game art, from concept art and character design to environment creation and world-building. You’ll hone your skills using world-class facilities equipped with high-end hardware and cutting-edge software like Autodesk Maya, Substance, Zbrush, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and game engines such as Unity and Unreal. Alongside mastering these tools, you’ll study the fundamental principles of game art and traditional art practices, preparing you to contribute to major game development projects in your second and third years. 
• This course is highly practical, offering you the opportunity to work on real game projects that simulate the industry’s fast-paced environment. We’ll inspire you to think creatively, experiment, and push the boundaries of game art. With guidance from industry professionals and access to top-tier facilities, you’ll graduate with a polished portfolio and the technical expertise to excel in the game industry. 

Why Choose This Course? 

• Hands-On Experience: Jump straight into real game projects, working with fellow students to create stunning visuals that bring games to life. 
• Creative Freedom: Explore your unique style and push your creative limits with guidance from industry experts who are there to help you shine. 
• ‍​​​​​Future-Ready: Whether you're aiming to be a character designer, concept artist, or 3D modeller, this course sets you up for success in a wide range of exciting roles in the game industry. 

Course Details

• You will study a total of 18 modules, including a final major project. Programme structures and modules can change as part of our curriculum enhancement and review processes. If a certain module is important to you, please discuss it with the Course Leader.

Year 1

• During the first year of your Game Art degree, you'll build core skills demanded by the industry, and learn about game artists' major roles and techniques.  
• Working with industry-standard software, methods and processes, you'll develop your drawing skills, better understand anatomy, and apply these abilities to 3D modelling and related elements.  
• You'll learn traditional and digital art skills – both 2D and 3D – alongside concept, environment and character art to build digital worlds and characters

Concept Art 1

• You will learn how to draw engaging and dynamic concept art for games using professional tools such as Photoshop and drawing tablets to realise your digital designs.  
• Developing traditional and contemporary skills through practical and creative studio workshops, you will be introduced to the visual communication models and techniques that are used.  
• Building your knowledge of perspective and lighting, you will improve how to communicate your ideas visually and study a range of stylistic approaches, game art culture and some of the most influential stylistic movements in art history. 

Character Art 1

• Create your own custom stylised or photoreal characters for game development. Utilising cutting-edge tools and software, you will apply the elemental principles of character art for games, while developing your understanding of anatomy and proportion through life drawing.  
• You’ll begin working with 3D sculpting and modelling, texturing and materials, while sharpening your observational skills and how you present varying character forms and styles.  

Environment Art 1

• Build spectacular environments for games. Whether you want to create vast panoramic vistas, or detailed internal spaces, you will undertake a series of exercises, where you will learn about visual referencing, scene setup, 3D planning, blocking out, modelling methodology and the UV mapping required to model and texture your scenes.  
• You will apply these skills to create bespoke environment art, using industry-standard digital tools, to produce high-definition 3D assets for use in the game development pipeline. 

Concept Art 2

• Level up your understanding of the tools and processes used to create stylistic and highly functional concept art for games. Through workshops and masterclasses from industry professionals, you will explore deeper and more methodical approaches that are critical to being an effective concept artist within a collaborative environment. 

Character Art 2

• Advance your character creation and development skills and learn how to achieve a desired aesthetic so your characters are ready for production.  
• You will further develop your skills through the use of 3D and 2D software, while deepening your understanding of advanced principles of traditional figurative art, such as line, tone, anatomy and proportion, through life drawing and digital techniques. 

Environment Art 2

• Become a pro with the software and the processes used to create captivating environments for games.  
• In this module, you will broaden your skill sets and learn new production techniques through studio time and practical workshops, so you can create technically accurate, optimised and engaging environment art.  
• Understanding the overarching and intertwining workflows, while considering hardware limitations, export pipeline, baking methodologies, texturing techniques, rendering, lighting and shadows, will elevate your skills as an environment artist.

Year 2

• In your second year, you’ll grow your confidence in game art and your skills with professional digital tools.  
• Where possible, you’ll participate in a collaborative project with game students of different disciplines to give you valuable experience in an industry-style development pipeline.  
• An additional specialist practice project lets you hone your skills in a particular area of game art, giving you the opportunity to create high-quality work for your portfolio.

Art Based Research

• Test your creative limits by exploring a specialism of your choice. You’ll develop an appreciation for the processes, tools and constraints of an alternate discipline and better understand others' workflows and deadlines, while broadening your skill set.  
• Once you have identified a new area of game art or animation practice which you wish to research and develop, you will embark on a phase of self-directed research to identify the technical pipeline resources and workflow examples required, to inform your development.  

World Building: Pre-Production

• You and your team are tasked with designing and planning the construction of a whole game world for production.  
• From designing the levels, assets and mechanics, to writing narrative, game design documents and experimenting with code and blueprints, your team will use industry-standard collaborative strategies and methodologies such as Agile, to collaboratively build a world for the Alpha stage of development.  
• Researching a diverse range of cultural sources and contexts, both fictional and historic, you will work in a multi-skilled team to start work on a game or interactive project. 

Developing Concept Art Vocabularies

• Produce professional concept art by perfecting your skills and application of your expertise within a collaborative production.  
• Working on your 2D skills and exploring new and experimental media, tasks will include designing new concept art on top of an interactive game prototype.  
• You may tie work undertaken in this module into either of the level’s other modules. 

Developing Character Art Vocabularies

• In this module you will perfect your character designs and builds by developing your proficiency in sculpting, modelling and texturing.  
• Through the application of advanced figurative art principles and extended life drawing, you will sharpen your observation skills, and your understanding of human anatomy as you continue to translate that to your 3D work.  

Developing Environment Art Vocabularies

• This module is your opportunity to consolidate your 3D modelling and texturing abilities to produce amazing visual designs for immersive environments, and the assets that populate these worlds.  
• With guidance from your tutor, you will identify an area that you want to focus on to build your experience and professional practice. This may be extended tool sets, or specialist processes such as procedural modelling.  
• You are encouraged to experiment and test out different techniques and approaches. 

World Building: Production

• Build the game world you planned in the previous study block. By the end of the module, you and your team will have built an engaging interactive experience. Delivering content in line with production milestones, you will prepare to release your game and reach your intended audience.  

‍‍Collaboration

• You will work on a cross-discipline project that utilises skills and techniques such as animation, VFX or virtual production techniques.  
• The module will focus on a range of collaboration skills allowing you to develop and utilise them as part of a collaborative team both outside and inside your disciplinary studies.  
• You will initially focus on a “challenge brief” that will test your abilities beyond your specialism. The second “challenge brief” is set by course teams and is closer to your original discipline. 

Year 3

• With specialism, independence and professional practice at the forefront of your third year, you'll join a multi-skilled team on a game development project.  
• Working in a studio environment, you'll contribute art assets using industry-standard methods and pipelines; taking your technical skills to the limit by investigating the use of cutting-edge specialist hardware and software used in games.  
• This final year will see you ready yourself for the job market by building a professional portfolio that showcases your talents by displaying the body of work you have produced up to this point. We'll then help you commercialise this work and prepare you for the transition to professional life.

Professional Portfolio

• Ready yourself for the job market by building a professional portfolio that showcases your talents by displaying the body of work you have produced up to this point.  
• In this module you will learn the form and protocols used by visual artists to exhibit their work and gain employment. Professional mentors guide you to consolidate knowledge and understanding of the enterprise and employment context of Game Art.  
• You will receive industry feedback on how to apply for work in games, bespoke career advice, and will engage with your professional mentor and explore the enterprise possibilities that arise over the course. 

Future Skills

• Future Skills will develop your commercial awareness and entrepreneurial mindset to be able to identify suitable opportunities and understand how they can be leveraged to your advantage.  
• Through detailed analysis of the business side of the industry and practical learning, you will design a project proposal within a team. The focus will be on working in an increasingly professional and autonomous manner, delivering content in line with agreed production milestones, and in a way which would enable you to commercially release your work should you choose to do so.  
• This will culminate towards an investment-style pitch where you present your project to an industry panel.  

Technical Art Practice

• Take your technical skills to the limit by investigating the use of cutting-edge specialist hardware and software used in games.  
• Delve into 3D and real-time technologies so the complex and nuanced learning required to become a skilled operator and technician becomes second nature.  
• You will deepen your understanding of the role of a technical artist, by examining the various roles they can fulfil, and what their place is in a typical game production pipeline. Investigating the different aspects of technical art including pipeline, tools, 2D, 3D, Procedural Modelling and VFX, you will gain an intuition of an array of new technical arts. 

Major Collaboration

• The final big team project, where you are free to collaborate in a transdisciplinary fashion to produce an innovative product or service, based on your own intellectual property.  
• Develop your professional autonomy, as you may choose to work on your previous project, or a newly proposed project that satisfies a real need or a response to a market opportunity your group has identified.  
• Projects could include enterprise solutions,  mobile apps, installations, games, web applications, robots, immersive experiences, software development tools, and more.

How You'll Learn

• You'll create original games through group work, professional practice and Game Jams. You'll also develop practical skills through practice-based workshops and learn to evaluate and improve your work through group tutorials, and individual tutorials.  
• You'll learn through practical workshops, lectures, seminars, group and individual tutorials, and tutor and peer feedback on your work.  

Assessment Methods 

• Assessments are 100 percent coursework. 
• Written assignments. 
• Presentations. 
• Portfolio development of creative, practical and/or technical work.

Why Choose dBs

• Here at dBs Institute, we pride ourselves on creating a learning environment that reflects the industry that you want to work in. Our state-of-the-art facilities ensure that you are working on professional-grade equipment; our course leaders have years of industry experience to draw from and we foster a community of students and staff that inspires and encourages collaboration. Throughout your studies and beyond, we will also provide you with career support and guidance to reach your future goals.

Your Future Prospects

• The beauty of game art is how many individual roles sit beneath it, and students studying this course will come away from this degree with the skills and experience to fulfil a great number of them.

In our career spotlight, we highlight the variety of roles available to graduates of this course and how you can progress into them:

• Game Programmer
• Game Artist